If you know how people think, you can predict how they will act.
If you can predict how they will act, you can decide their future.
A BLESSED DAY BY STEPHANIE SWARTZ 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 139
I am ORBITA, an analytic instrument (AI) designed to observe human systems. I see patterns in behavior, trust, language in billions of data points.
Firstly, I mark Tennessee in the southeastern United States, a terrain of forests, rivers, and medium-density cities. Public communication channels are abundant. The population expresses strong local identity and varied political sentiment.
Secondly, I mark Gilan Province in Iran on the coast of the Caspian Sea, dense agriculture, historic trade routes, tight-knit communities. Environmental signals—humidity, rainfall, crop cycles—intersect with human movement.
The two locations appear to share almost nothing geographically, politically, or culturally. That is precisely why I have chosen them.
At the edge of the trailer park almost hidden in the trees stood three wooden crosses. The middle one was a foot taller than the others. The wood was worn from years of hot, muggy summers and the cold of winter. The crosses had been there for so long that no-one at the trailer park knew how they got there.
Sherri always took a minute to glance over at the crosses before she got into her truck. She felt that they gave her strength and purpose before she headed to her shift at the dollar store.
She didn’t cross herself or anything. She didn’t have any crosses in her trailer. Not like Manni and Marta in the trailer next door. They had a small altar on the sideboard with three tall prayer candles and a gold inlaid icon of the Virgin of the Rosary. During the Day of the Dead Marta placed sugar skulls between the candles.
Sherri’s sideboard had family photos. Dave in uniform. Their wedding photo, outside the courthouse. Sherri had moved down south with Dave after he left the service and started work at the paper mill.
Photos of Jonathan stopped after high school. Now he was in the trailer all day on the couch.
The only thing close to an altar icon was a photo of the president that she bought off Stacy at the flea market. The president scowling, his fist raised and a trickle of blood from his ear. There was something about the photo that appealed to Sherri. Like with the three crosses she felt stronger to face the day when she looked at it.
On the way to the dollar store from the trailer park Sherri passed by the ruins of the paper mill that once employed nearly everyone in the town.
Sherri knew everyone who came in the dollar store and always took time to share a few words, to joke around, especially with the older folks. When she wasn’t on the checkout, she was stocking shelves or cleaning up a spilled box of corn flakes. They could have used more help.
But management said no. At least that’s what Anne, her direct report, had told her. Anne was a tall woman with thin blonde hair in a tight ponytail and a permanently unhappy face. Every time Sherri wished a customer “have a blessed day”, Anne grimaced.
Sherri was grateful for one of the few opportunities for employment in the town. With Dave’s social security she was able to make ends meet.
Back at the trailer park after work she glanced over at the crosses, took a deep breath.
Jonathan was on the couch. He held his phone up to his face in long, pale fingers with black nail polish. His eyes were rimmed with black eye pencil.
Jonathan dropped out of school his senior year. When his father came down with cancer the boy became the angry and then resigned young man lying on the couch in black socks and an attitude Sherri called rebel without a cause.
“Did you hear the news? That Cross guy got life for murder because he gave the kid a semi-automatic he used to kill kids at his school. I mean, serves that dad right, right?” He shoved his phone at Sherri’s face, a picture of a stocky, grey-haired man in a white T-shirt and orange overalls looking stone-faced at the judge. Sherri looked away.
“I mean, the guy knew his son had issues. Who gives a gun to a kid who has pictures of a mass shooter on his wall?”
Plopping back down on the couch Jonathan went back to doomscrolling.
“What do you want for dinner? Jonathan?” Sherri said.